The Sailing Marathon

I believe we've set a record this weekend for the most hours sailing in one day. We set out from the marina at around 10 after doing some morning work on the boat with the intention of sailing to Cove 4 just to check it out because we have a "raft-up" next weekend. (A raft-up is where a group of boats raft up together and party like we did on the Fourth of July weekend). It took us quite a while and quite a few tacks to get there since the wind was coming from the Southeast at a pretty solid 12-15 knots and the waves were pretty choppy. At one point we were heeled over at a good 25 degrees. For those of you who have never sailed, in Nomad you need to have your feet braced against the other seat at this point or you're going overboard. I've been trying to find someone to take a picture of Nomad while we're sailing so you can see her but no luck so far and I also managed to forget my camera this weekend so sorry for the lack of new pictures. Even though this isn't our boat, it's sailing at about 15-20 degrees of heel so you can get an idea of what it looks like. I promise to try to get some pictures of heeling on Nomad sometime in the near future.

   

 

Coming back from Cove 4 we decided to head north to Tradewinds and then back to our Marina. As we lowered the sails and turned on the engine it began to overheat again so we had to shut it off quickly and raise the jib again. We sailed circles for a while just outside the marina while the engine cooled off. Then Tim did some expert sailing into the marina entrance just on the headsail. At the very last moment that we could, we started the engine, motored quickly around the corner of the dock and glided into the slip and shut the motor off. It turns out, after some investigation, that our impeller dried out from sitting on land for 2 years and crumbled into bits. No impeller, no cooling water. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got home this evening was to order not one, but TWO impellers. Now we'll have a spare. Right after we pulled into the slip we met up with the Marina's newest tenant, Barry , on his 36ft Albin. He's a single guy who always needs crew to sail that big boat and he asked us if we wanted to go along. Off we went for one of the most wonderful evening sails you could imagine. The sun was setting a big orange ball with purple strips of clouds while we clipped along at a good 7 1/2 knots upwind and then a consistent 5 1/2 knots downwind. This is one fast, sleek, sexy boat. We didn't get back to the marina till nearly 9:30 and by the time dinner was cooked and eaten, we were completely worn out. All in all we sailed about 10 1/2 hours yesterday, managed a small emergency, met some new friends, got to know some friends better, and just generally had a great day. Now if someone could figure out a way to remove all the carp from the marina....